About Laws and Liberty

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About Laws and Liberty

Dear Editor:

In every state, there are laws to prevent the purchase of drugs without a doctor's prescription, yet people continue to die of drug overdoses. If laws can really control a person's behavior, as gun control advocates would have us believe, why aren't illegal drug use and deaths a thing of the past?

Maybe there are lessons to be learned from the billions of dollars that we have spent on the "War on Drugs" and the millions of lives impacted by punitive laws that seek to control what people choose to put in their own bodies. Despite all the laws, fines and jail time designed to discourage illegal drug use, it continues with a vengeance. Maybe more laws are not the answer.

And so it is with gun control. Every time some lunatic kills someone, or many people, there is an outcry for more restrictive gun laws. “If only guns were harder to get’ the theory goes, ‘these heinous crimes would stop.” Well, if we evaluate the efficacy of our drug laws over the past 60-plus years, we can see that is not the case.

The first rule in medicine is “do no harm.” The same should apply to legislation that reduces our individual liberty. The essence of America is the freedom of its 330 million individuals to live the life they want as long as they don’t hurt others in the process. Some laws are a necessary evil, and others are unnecessary and evil. I implore my fellow citizens to think twice before voting away one of our fundamental rights as Americans. As New York City has proven, what starts off as innocent registration, soon turns into an outright ban on gun ownership unless the government decides to make an exception. Really?

Without access to guns, people hell-bent on killing would simply find some other means. Europe, with its more restrictive gun laws, loses far more people to bombings than the U.S. Besides, there are already more than 270 federal laws on the books, as well as countless state laws covering gun sales and gun ownership.

Will more gun control laws make our country safer? Not likely, but one thing is for sure, restrictive gun laws are the antithesis of individual liberty. Let's be very careful before giving up even more personal freedom than we have already. To quote Benjamin Franklin, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Rick Horan

Power Point

Dear Editor:

Interesting how 200 nasty-lookin' windmills off Rockaway and Long Beach to be hooked up to hundreds of miles of underwater voltage lines are championed vigorously and triumphantly as 'non-invasive' and 'self-sustaining' by the Governor and local environmentalists, but one single underwater pipeline to bring clean and green and cheap natural gas to NYC is vilified by the very-same Governor and the very-same environmentalists as destructive!

The ultimate outcome some years from now (after Governor Cuomo has run for President...twice!) — bigger, much bigger!, electric bills from Con-Ed and PSE&G.

Best for better energy for NYC and Rockaway...clean, green and cheap natural gas and solar.